The United States’ grid reliability authority issued a report this month cautiously detailing the potential problems with the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

In short, there are potential flaws in the EPA’s carbon rule which may render it workable in its current form.

NERC warns that forcing more coal-fired power plants to retire and increasing reliance on natural gas-fire plants and green energy sources. The reliability regulator said the “number of estimated retirements identified in the EPA’s proposed rule may be conservative if the assumptions prove to be unachievable.”

“Developing suitable replacement generation resources to maintain adequate reserve margin levels may represent a significant reliability challenge, given the constrained time period for implementation,” NERC noted.

Not only that, but reliability could also be harmed by the fact that new energy sources being put onto the grid (aka green energy) will have different power flows than retiring power systems, which requires “changes to operations and expected behaviors of the system; therefore, more transmission and new operating procedures may be needed to maintain reliability,” according to NERC.

NERC also noted that EPA’s goal of a 6 percent heat-rate (the amount of power used to generate electricity) improvement at coal plants may be wrong since power plants already have an incentive to operate as efficiently as possible.

The “assumed improvements may not be realized across the entire generation fleet since many plant efficiencies have already been realized and economic heat rate improvements have been achieved,” NERC said. “Multiple incentives are in place to operate units at peak efficiency, and periodic turbine overhauls are already a best practice.”

Assumptions about energy efficiency could also prove perilous for the EPA’s plan since poor estimates in this case could mean that more coal-fired power plants would have to be retired to make up for the lag in energy efficiency gains.

But probably the strongest criticism from NERC, which has also been expressed by states, is that there may not be enough time for utilities and states to comply with the EPA’s plan. NERC says that state and regional plans “must be approved by the EPA, which is anticipated to require up to one year, leaving as little as six months to two years to implement the approved plan.”

“Constructing the resource additions, as well as the expected transmission enhancements, may represent a significant reliability challenge given the constrained time period for implementation,” NERC said.

The EPA’s CPP is probably the most contentious agency rule in recent history and will likely result in the closing of more coal-fired power plants. Republicans, power companies and states have expressed concerns over the plan’s feasibility as well as its necessity since there has been no global warming for more than 18 years.

But the EPA argues that its plan is solid and will help fight global warming while boosting the U.S. economy. The agency said it also paid special attention to the effects its plan could have on the reliability of the electric grid.

“During the development of the proposed rule, EPA devoted significant attention to ensuring that the Clean Power Plan’s public health and environmental protections are achieved without interfering with a reliable supply of electricity,’ an agency spokeswoman told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “EPA’s analysis finds that the proposal would not raise significant concerns over regional resource adequacy or raise the potential for interregional grid problems.”

“Any remaining local issues would be managed, as they are today, through standard reliability planning processes,” the EPA spokeswoman said.

Republicans and opponents of the EPA’s plan have warned that the agency’s global warming rule could lead to power outages, especially in times of bad weather. Last winter, some areas of the U.S. were on the brink of losing power and had to rely on coal plants set for retirement to keep the lights on.

The EPA says that power plant outages mostly occur in bad weather, which will be exacerbated by global warming. Curbing global warming will curb the chances of extreme weather harming the electric grid.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Posting Policy

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.